Former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw on Tuesday dismissed Barack Obama's air strikes in Syria as too late and not effective. Talking to Ronan Farrow on MSNBC, he chided, "We've known about ISIS moving out of Syria, moving into Iraq for some time and the time to hit them was when they were on the move before they got themselves positioned in Iraq and had taken over cities and created an infrastructure, if you will, for their military." [MP3 audio here.]
The veteran journalist cautioned, "There ought not to be any illusion that this is going to be over in a hurry, just because we're striking them in Syria today."
Without mentioning Barack Obama by name, Brokaw critiqued:
TOM BROKAW: A very prominent Middle East leader was talking to a close friend of mine in the last 24 hours and said we missed a great opportunity. As soon as ISIS moved out of Syria, we could see where they were going and what they were up to and we were kind of immobilized in this country about what to do.
The journalist also offered the somewhat standard assessment of the possibility for blowback: "Also, if we strike them so hard, and that begins to go out into the wider Islamic community, inevitably, young men say, 'I'm going to join the Islamic forces.'"
A partial transcript of the September 23 segment is below:
1:05
TOM BROKAW: So, bombing from 20,000 feet or 10,000 feet has an impact and it looks worse to us than it does sometimes to the people on the ground. That's one issue that we have to deal with. It's not pinpoint killing. It's kind of massive destruction, hoping that you, as he said, will interdict their command and control apparatus. But they have been able to go into the hills in some way and have this uncanny ability to reinvent themselves. Also, if we strike them so hard, and that begins to go out into the wider Islamic community, inevitably, young men say, "I'm going to join the Islamic forces." It becomes a recruiting tool, if you will, for ISIS. So, it's a tricky piece. What most people I've been talking to say is we got started way too late with too little. We've known about ISIS moving out of Syria, moving into Iraq for sometime. And the time to hit them was when they were on the move before they got themselves positioned in Iraq and had taken over cities and created an infrastructure, if you will, for their military.
1:10
BROKAW: [Talking to Senator Bill Nelson] This is a classic definition of a symmetrical warfare. We have the most powerful country in the world, the United States, against a well organized, but nonetheless renegade group. The fact is that as you tried to decide whether we will give the President congressional authorization, they are making plans on the run. They are folding them back in the hills and moving into other areas. That's now how you win against them. We have to play by new rules, don't we?
...
BROKAW: So, there ought not to be any illusion that this is going to be over in a hurry, just because we're striking them in Syria today and it looks devastating when you watch it on television. It's going to go on for the rest of the President's term of office and probably beyond that. A very prominent Middle East leader was talking to a close friend of mine in the last 24 hours and said we missed a great opportunity. As soon as ISIS moved out of Syria, we could see where they were going and what they were up to and we were kind of immobilized in this country about what to do.
